Gardener

Vacancy Type: Full Time/Permanent

Contracted Hours: 37.5 hours per week

Application Deadline: Sunday, November 8, 2026

About the role

As a Gardener at Southern Hospices Group, you will play a vital part in creating welcoming, peaceful outdoor environments that offer comfort, reflection, and calm for patients, families, and staff. Our hospice grounds offer an exceptionally varied and rewarding working environment, from propagation and growing in the polytunnel to caring for kitchen gardens, wildflower meadows, woodland walks, wildlife ponds, private contemporary patient gardens, and large open green spaces. Every area you maintain contributes directly to wellbeing, giving a real sense of job satisfaction and pride in your work.

You will carry out a diverse range of horticultural and grounds maintenance activities, working flexibly both on your own and alongside other gardeners to maintain high standards across the hospice grounds. By ensuring compliance with health, safety, and environmental requirements, your work will have a visible and meaningful impact every day.

The role also offers the rewarding opportunity to work alongside volunteers and corporate groups, sharing your knowledge and skills to help others contribute positively to the hospice environment. Your guidance will ensure these activities are safe, well organised, and fulfilling for everyone involved.

If you take pride in your work, enjoy working outdoors, and want to be part of something genuinely meaningful, this role offers a rewarding blend of responsibility, creativity, and purpose.

You'll be

• Maintaining garden sheds / workshops and all tools and machinery keeping tidy and safe at all time
• Ability to carry out a full range of horticultural and grounds maintenance tasks independently, without the need for supervision or ongoing guidance
• Ensure compliance with health and safety regulations
• Identify and treat pests, diseases, and plant health issues
• Carry out maintenance of lawns, flower and vegetable gardens, including watering, fertilizing, and caring for trees, shrubs, turf, and associated hard landscaping features such as irrigation systems and water features
• Managing teams of volunteers and corporate groups on a weekly basis and ensuring guidance and support is adequately provided
• Work with external suppliers
• Work within agreed plans and legislative requirements as may be in place
• Carry out and accurately record grounds compliance checks, including daily and monthly playground inspections and routine water feature treatments
• Reporting and updating to the Grounds Manager of any progression or issues
• Work collaboratively with team members and follow instructions from senior staff

Essential Experience

• Minimum of 1 years experience in gardening with experience of powered garden machinery. A broad understanding of garden maintenance is desirable
• Experience of crops within a polytunnel, including planting, watering, feed and harvesting

About us

Southern Hospice Group is the largest group of hospices in Sussex and one of the largest in the UK. We are committed to providing exceptional and compassionate care to adults, children and their families across Sussex. Bringing our teams and resources together as one organisation means we can focus on new and exciting visions and plans for our people and patients and provide even greater opportunities for our workforce.

St Barnabas House provides specialist palliative care to adults in the Worthing, Adur, Arun and Henfield areas through a range of services, including in-patient care and community living well services.

Chestnut Tree House is the children’s hospice for East and West Sussex and South East Hampshire, providing specialist palliative care for children and young people with life-limiting conditions.

Martlets provides essential care to people affected by terminal illness in Brighton and Hove and surrounding areas. Our expert teams provide the very best care and support, helping patients and their loved ones to live life to the full during the precious time they have together.

Benefits

• Company pension scheme or NHS pension scheme for eligible employees
• Up to 35 days’ annual leave inclusive of bank holidays
• On-site education support and study leave opportunities
• Option to access Medicash and cover your everyday cost of healthcare for less
• Free parking, subsidised meals and various social activities
• Corporate rate gym membership, discounts with local complementary therapies and Blue Light Card
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Death in Service

We warmly welcome applications from all sections of our community. We also invite applications from suitably experienced people for all industry sectors who can demonstrate the skills, ability and enthusiasm to work with a people-centric organisation like ours.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

Your application and interview should give us an accurate and authentic picture of your skills and experiences. Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.

Before you submit an application, we will ask you to confirm the information you provide is true and accurate. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.

Please note that we reserve the right to close this vacancy before the published closing date where applicant volume is high.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for an Enhanced submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.